


residual heat

by torrentialTriages



Category: Welcome to the MSO
Genre: F/F, F/M, Implied/Referenced Sex, Jazz - Freeform, Multi, implied/referenced parental Awfulness, this is why you dont invite your friend's children to your nightclub
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-21
Updated: 2017-07-26
Packaged: 2018-08-10 02:32:21
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 2,582
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7826797
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/torrentialTriages/pseuds/torrentialTriages
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>(n): the heat left after a surface has had a heat source applied then removed</p><p>short fragments, mso + 2.0 collection, entirely headcanon. will continue until official publication.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. crevasse (bridget, max, g, 2x3s)

bridget doesn't have to play _nice_ anymore, doesn't have to keep her head down and mouth desperately shut, but when natalie comes around, she still tenses up, and after natalie has taken her harried sniping and moral handcuffs elsewhere, the rest of the day seems more like a gray haze, the sisters' pasts come to wrap their slimy memories around bridget until she finds something else to devote her full attention to.

she thinks, with a dull half-smile in between patients, that self-diagnosis seems to be publicly acceptable only once you have a medical degree.

but really, it didn't have to take a medical degree to look at her history and know that bridget liu was a glued vase, ptsd still an insidious breeze, overall health still teetering precariously on the edge decades later.

\--

"aunt bridget, i loved the story of how you killed that bitch," her nine year old nephew gushes, eyes crinkling adorably at the edges, grasping his tiny notebook and light-up pencil like they were the key to the most important trial of his future career.

"whoa, kiddo," she puts her hands on his shoulders, casting about for signs of her sister, "don't say the b-word in front of your mom, i don't think she'd be happy that i'm teaching you bad words." she leans in once the coast is confirmed to be clear, and whispers conspiratorially, "but between you and me, i think she learned how to swear in english first."


	2. torridity (tate/alan, t, 3s)

tate breathes deeply and raggedly into the crook of alan's neck as he stares at her ceiling, her white freckly knuckles grasping at his shirt like a drowner, the fabric riding up his torso in ways that make her want to dig her nails into his skin again, to make him gasp and groan and swear and scream, to have a repeat of the time leading up to this moment. instead, she leans in, lips almost touching his ear, and asks, "how was it?"

"wow," he mutters, "just... wow," and she laughs breathlessly.


	3. fluorescent (altai, g, 3s)

Hong Kong and Manhattan are similar, Altai reflects as she leans against the railing of the bridge, bodyguards steps away: bustling, teeming with lights and life and spaces outside the lamplights, past the people making livings out there, calling to anyone who dared to listen, with sweet lies and layers of masks and polite veneers until it was only the knife in your ribs telling you you fucked up.

_But they're not the same,_ she thinks, frustrated, yearning, _even Mongolia in its entirety is a completely different flavor of life and I still want to keep_ tasting _it_.

She gives herself a few more minutes to mope and indulge her homesickness, then purposely steps out of the lamplight, for a certain Cirigliano was to be dealt with, and he would be dealt with on time.


	4. knock (darlene/douglas/vanessa, t?, 3s)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> author: btw lawsquad was poly  
> me: jackpot
> 
> IM SO SORRY FOR THE SIN

"vanessa-  _ah, vanessa,_ " darlene gasps, reaching back to grasp at vanessa's wrist as the young woman lavishes attention on darlene's neck, slender chocolate hands roaming smoothly down her pale stomach from behind her, but darlene's hands only bump into another cardboard box ("shit," "nice going," hisses vanessa), and she grasps the cold metal of the shelving as she lets out a shuddering breath.

"vaughn can only stay on lunch break for so long," douglas mutters, fingerpads skimming under darlene's work shirt as he presses his forehead against vanessa's, fingers searching for darlene's bra hooks. "we gotta hurry it up," he breathes, and is cut off as vanessa snickers and pulls him in for a kiss over darlene's shoulder. 


	5. interview (harpers, malika, tate, altai, g, short story)

alan steeples his fingers and leans forward, the utmost look of “i will not hesitate to fuck you up if you do not behave yourself in front of me” written all over his face. intently, he searches malika’s face, then takes a deep breathe and rattles off: “so have you ever done anything illegal? killed a man? shipped cocaine to new york? jaywalked?” (“hey!” protests altai from the pantry.) he leans back in his chair and reaches for his mug, which steams gentler than the atmosphere abe, alan, and tate give off.

“no, but i have shipped heroin to chicago,” jokes malika, chortling.

abe and eli cringe to varying degrees. tate freezes. so does alan’s mug-carrying hand, halfway to his mouth as he stares, consternated, at malika, still so sunny after the joke hit too close to home.

“please tell me you didn’t mean that,” says tate, frostily, thawing somewhat from her cold shock.

malika sits up straighter in surprise. “oh, no, no, it was a joke.” she looks around, eyebrows knitting together. “what, do we actually have a drug dealer in the family?”

eli sucks in a hissing breath and winces. abe puts his head on the table and groans.

“present,” yells altai irritably, among a series of noises that sounded like a cereal box being emptied.

tate silently presses her forehead to the window.

unfortunately that set the tone for the rest of the meeting.

 

\--

 

“what the _fuck_ ,” yells tate, stomping around the kitchen island in frustration pulling at her hair after malika had left. “what the fuck.”

alan leans back, a vague smug grin on his face, folding his arms over his stomach. “well, i thought it was funny. too soon, but it was good.”

“you can’t just joke about illegal shit when we have an _actual criminal_ in the family,” tate stresses, gesturing aggressively at altai.

“hey fuck you,” blurts altai reflexively. tate whirls around, and the two women have a mini stare-off until tate growls frustratedly and resumes pacing.

“it was kinda funny,” eli says thoughtfully, perched on the edge of the counter. altai jabs a lighthearted elbow into his stomach. “it was!”

“it wasn’t supposed to happen,” moans abe into the counter opposite alan, “i told her not to make any bad jokes.”

“well, it did.” alan takes a deep swallow of tea. then, to tate’s spluttered indignance, he continues, “so when are you inviting her back?”


	6. lemon (altai/eli, strings, saxes, g, 2x3s)

_“i’m gonna die a virgin,” altai howls to the inside of the hot air balloon, echoes probably making it all the way over to the louvre. sakura resists the urge to bash her head against the basket edge (she settles for drumming her fingers urgently on the basket rim)._

_“i’m still saying,” hyun says thoughtfully, measured, over altai’s wailing, “that if we toss ichiro over, we won’t have to worry about being too heavy to steer.”_

–

“i’m no longer afraid to die a virgin,” altai announces cheerily in the hotel dining area at breakfast, flouncing into the room like it was the soccer news during world cup season. eli chokes on his ill-timed swallow of orange juice.

“good to see you’ve resigned yourself to your fate,” deadpans abe, whose disconcerted unease makes altai smirk even wider.


	7. taffeta (gryffin-harpers, g, short story)

"Are those... girls... _climbing the sound scaffolding?_ "

"Oh my sweet heavens," Tate mutters dirtily into her wineglass, turning away from the horrified snooty people milling about, disconcerted at the spectacle of her daughters wreaking havoc at the fanciest function they'd ever attended. It was a mistake, she tells her glass, to have come with Alan and the kids to one of Xavier's regular parties.

"So are you regretting this?" Abe asks, gazing mournfully at the milling crowd gathering under Lex and Ariah's competitive reach for the top.

" _So_ much," agrees Tate, flat. Abe pats her shoulder sympathetically.

Alan walks by, away from the spectacle, giving Tate a cheeky wave. She mutters a quick "see you" to Abe as she peels herself away from his side to walk with Alan.

"So," Alan muses, strolling casually. "You still sure you wanted to leave the kids at home?"

"I couldn't just get a babysitter," Tate hisses, walking sternly in stride with him. "They'd make Rudolph cry just by looking at him. _Especially_ Lex, you know that."

"I do," he replies, a little smugly, entirely too proudly. "She's only _fourteen_." She scoffs low in the back of her throat.

"They're  _your_ kids too, you should be telling them to behave-"

"Oh," Alan says immediately, mock-dramatic, "How do  _you_ know they're mine?"

" _Alan._ "

He smirks. "For all  _I_ know I'm just your boyfriend and the kids have absolutely no connection to me."

"Alan be fucking serious for once." 

 Alan does not get a chance to continue being melodramatic, as their thirteen-year-old son scuttles up to them, looking extremely guilty.

"Mom," whispers Nate, furtive, like his blazer will swallow him whole before he can confess, "I, uh..."

"What, Nate," she asks, dreading the answer. He fidgets.

"I accidentally set a table on fire."

" _What._ "

Faster fidgeting. "I lit a cigarette, and then I, uh... dropped it... and it uh wasn't out..." He bites his fingers and points with his free hand at a fire smoldering cheerily, brighter than the purple-and-blue neon lights. "It's that way." _How did he get his hands on cigarettes?_   wonders Tate in the back of her mind.

Alan frowns. "Well, _someone's_ got to tell Xavier." He brightens up. "I'll tell Abraham to do it."

Tate sighs deeply. It will be a far longer night than she ever wanted it to be.


	8. vehemence (tate, alan, g, 3x3s)

"What the fuck?" Tate demands, her firm stormy glare boring into him like nails drilling into wood. "How could you do that to Lex?"  _She was your_ favorite _, Alan,_ goes unsaid, and he clenches his jaw, then slowly unclenches it.

"You're just like your father," she snaps, vicious, and he snaps too, instinctively raising his arm above his head, taking a single step towards her.

" _Don't you dare say that,_ " he roars.

She does not flinch. 

"You've done her wrong," she tells him, voice shaking with the rage she could always somehow contain and he couldn't, so much anger for one small woman, and he turns away, anger returning to a low heat on the burner.

"I know," he mutters, because that is all he can tell her.


	9. chiroptera (rudi, lex, g, short story)

Lex frightens Rudi, even at this age. She's inherited Alan's expression that denotes an incoming spiked baseball bat to the gut, no matter her emotions, his haughtiness, and Tate's ability to freeze her rage in time and articulate what she wants in a chillingly precise voice. She hadn't shown the hair-trigger temper that caused both of her parents to lash out, but time and stimuli would tell. He was terrified of the day that'd come.

_She's only seven,_ he chides himself sternly. _Buck up._

"Do you want to play with something, Lex?" he asks, unsure exactly of how to babysit a seven year old. This was a favor for Tate, but he could hardly have admitted to her face that Lex would probably end up being the one looking after him.

"I don't want to play with anything," the little girl tells him impassively. "I'm going to sit here and read about bats." And she goes to do exactly that.

"O-okay. Is there anything I can help with? Do you want tea?"

Lex considers this solemnly, perched on his couch. "No thank you." She pointedly ignores him coolly, flipping through the Dorling-Kindersley book like it was a riveting microscope sample and she was a scientist on the verge of a breakthrough.

Rudolph heaves a sigh as quietly as he can. "Alright, well, yell for me if you need anything." She nods, still looking closely at a picture of a fruit bat.

They pass a very quiet and enjoyable afternoon in each other's silent company, in Rudi's opinion, and when Tate encourages Lex to wave goodbye to him and she does so, not looking at him, he considers it a small victory, and at this point they might even be friends.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i hc lex as autistic and no one will take this away from me


	10. eighths (vaughns, tony, rudi, martin, eli, short story, g)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> im clearing out my notes sorry for the lazy ending

Martin had decided it was time to open their horizons before they hit the road, to play some jazz, just try it, and Rudolph was sure that was a recipe for disaster. It was almost certainly a recipe for confusion, as he watched Tony scrunch up his face trying to read the directions on his chart.

"Open for sold- sale?" Anthony squinted at his sheet music.

"Oh, give me that," snapped Jess, marching over to snatch his papers off his stand with a crumpling noise. Then, after a moment: "It says solos, assweed!"

"Assweed?" repeated Eli, incredulous, a goofy rendition of a smirk growing on his face.

"Shut up," Jess snapped, barely dignifying him with a glance. Eli turned, fake-shocked and offended, to Abe, as if to say _did you hear what she said to your darling baby brother?_ She continued. "How did you read it as 'sold'?"

"Jazz was a mistake," Max hummed with solemn humor, turning his sheet music over. "And so were you."

Jess gasped indignantly. "Maximilian!"

"That's enough," shouted Martin, obviously still fed up with their shenanigans. "Are we going to play or not?"

Rudolph couldn't think of a worse option to go through with, but hey, he wasn't the conductor. Martin would regret this soon enough if he didn't already.


	11. merino (nate & ariah, g, short story)

"Ariah," Nate yells through the house. "Did you take my sweater?"

"Noooo," Ariah yells back, trying to keep the guilt out of her voice as best as possible. She's not technically _wrong._

A pause. "Did _someone else_ take my sweater?" Oh no, he's heading towards her room.

Ariah can't lie. "....... Yyyyyeeees?"

Her door busts open without so much as an 'are you decent' and her older brother stands in the doorway, arms folded, unimpressed. "Did you give my sweater away?"

"I will neither confirm nor deny that," Ariah says with more flippancy than this situation deserves.

"Ariah. If I find out you _let_  someone take my new sweater, I _will_  tell Ms. Park you forgot to do your History essay-"

"I didn't forget! It's due _tomorrow,_ which means I have over twelve hours to do it!" She gets up out of her chair and they stand there, staring each other down. Well, he leans.

"Uh huh." He snorts, unmoved. His stare bores into her fucking _soul._

She wrings her hands. "Okay fine I wore it to school on Wednesday and Kate was cold so I gave it to her."

"Wednesday- that was a _week_ ago!" He groans. "What the fuck!"

"Is Mom home?" Ariah asks pointedly.

"Don't fucking redirect." He points at her. "Why'd you give it to someone else? Or I'll tell Halliday you didn't understand derivatives either."

"I- wh- Nate, you don't understand derivatives either!"

"Because I don't take smart math!"

"I take regular math! Your head is full of contact sports!"

"That's not the point, the point is I want my sweater back. Also, that's a little gay," Nate intones.

"What, me? Gay? Pshaw, I am Miss Straightest Hetero To Ever Walk This Earth." She sighs. "I'll tell her to bring it back, okay? Now get out. I have an essay to bullshit."

"Not good enough. What's her homeroom? I'm going to loom threateningly over her until she promises me."

"Oh my god, Nate, get out." He doesn't budge. She puts her hands on his (sizeable) shoulders and pushes and he still doesn't budge. "Nate! Come on, I _promise_  I'll get her to give it back on Friday." God, why is he so heavy????? "Oh my god, Nate, go plan another outfit!!! You could wear nothing but giraffe underwear to school and all your stupid friends would swoon over you!!"

He sighs, finally and squints at her in that way he does when he's conceding something. "Friday. No later." And then he leaves.

She sighs too, then heads back to her laptop. This essay wouldn't bullshit itself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> pry mlm/wlw sibling solidarity nate and ariah from my cold dead gay hands (haha get it. like bury your gays)  
> i accidentally lost the Entire thing except for some excerpts in a tragic fumble and im suffering. this has little of the heart or charm of the original draft


End file.
